Your mission this week is to add some avocados to your anti-cancer plate.

Avocados are naturally high in (healthy) fats, rich in antioxidants and phytochemicals, making them an excellent addition to an anti-cancer diet. Lindsay uses avocados in a healthy favorite salad.

Avvvvvocado!

Calling all the avocado lovers. *whole world raises hand*

Today’s southwestern salad is so super simple and classic – just spicy golden roasted sweet potatoes tossed with sweet corn, black beans, chopped romaine lettuce, and a cool n’ creamy avocado dressing that is packed with cilantro, lime, and other good things.

I mean, what can I say? It’s not the world’s most cray-z-awesome creative combination – it’s just what my mouth wants to eat every day all day in the summatime.

Let’s get right down to it. I adore this salad for many reasons, one of them being that you can actually just omit the lettuce (umm I didn’t just say that ?) and toss the roasted sweet potatoes, corn, black beans, and avocado dressing together for more of a Southwestern Salad meets *Chips and Dip for Lunch* situation.

Judging by how closely our food tastes align most of the time in this internet food blog space, I’m going to guess that you’ll be as obsessed as I have been for the last five hundred lunches.

This southwestern salad takes about 30 minutes to prep, start to finish.

Spicy Southwestern Salad with Avocado Dressing

Serves: 4 big salads

Image by Pinch of Yum

Ingredients

For the Salad

2 sweet potatoes

1 tablespoon oil

1 heaping teaspoon each cumin and chili powder (plus a sprinkle of cayenne if you like it hot)

salt and pepper to taste

1 14-ounce can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 14-ounce can sweet corn, rinsed and drained

1 romaine heart, chopped

For the Cilantro Dressing:

half an avocado

¼ cup Greek yogurt

½ cup water

1 cup cilantro leaves and stems

1 small clove of garlic

½ teaspoon salt

a squeeze of lime juice

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Peel the sweet potatoes and chop into bite-sized pieces.

Mix the olive oil, cumin, and chili powder together in a small bowl.

Brush mixture on sweet potatoes.

Image by Pinch of Yum

Roast for 10 minutes. Stir or shake the pan. Turn heat up to 425, and roast for another 10-15 minutes. Check, stir, and bake until the sweet potatoes are just barely roasty-brown on the outside.

Season with salt and pepper.

Meanwhile, pulse all the dressing ingredients in a food processor until mostly smooth.

Toss the beans, corn, lettuce, and sweet potatoes with the dressing. Serve with chips and/or the other half of the avocado for extra yum!

Notes

This recipe can be made vegan by swapping the Greek yogurt with a non-dairy yogurt alternative – even just a little hunk of tofu would work, or maybe the whole avocado instead of half. But don’t use oil – the oil and avocado don’t really blend together well (I speak from experience).

It is a well known fact that a plant-based diet is a strong foundation in the anti-cancer kitchen. As proteins are an important nutrient to include, when it com…

About the Author

Lindsay Ostrom

Lindsay Ostrom is the food enthusiast behind the successful food blogging site Pinch of Yum. What started out as a part-time hobby turned into a full-fledged business in 2014. Her dream of blogging about the food she loves turned into a reality.

Why does Lindsay love to blog? Here are a few reasons:
– Learn more about food, cooking and photography
– Offering food ideas for healthy eating
– Offering practical food ideas for any type of cook

Lindsay offers great resources on her website. She has a free eCookbook with her top 25 recipes and offers a how to start a food blog with easy step-by-step instructions.